


i want to stay by your side

by theafterimages



Series: playground [2]
Category: GOT7, KARA (Band)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-23
Updated: 2015-03-23
Packaged: 2018-03-19 06:22:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3599610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theafterimages/pseuds/theafterimages
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Youngji can’t go to Homecoming, but Jackson makes sure she gets to experience one part of it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i want to stay by your side

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted [here](http://eveninadream.livejournal.com/12208.html#cutid1).

Youngji’s had mono for three weeks now; three weeks of lying listlessly around the house, three weeks of Jackson dutifully bringing her classwork over every day. For someone as active and lively as Youngji usually is, it’s been three weeks of torture.

This also means she missed Homecoming week, and yesterday’s Homecoming dance. Had this been any other year it wouldn’t have mattered as much, but this is her senior year. This was her last Homecoming, and she’d spent the night in bed instead.

She flops over onto her stomach, groaning into her pillow. Jackson’s promised to come over today to continue their Parks and Recreation marathon, and she hopes he’ll get here before she goes out of her mind refreshing Facebook in the hopes of seeing new Homecoming pictures and wishing she could have been there, too.

As if on cue, her phone rings, and she grabs it and answers without even lifting her head. “Hello?” she mumbles.

“Youngji!”

Youngji groans again. It’s like ever since she got sick Jackson’s decided that he needs to have enough enthusiasm for both of them. “Are you here yet?”

“Yeah, I’m downstairs! Hey, you still have your Homecoming dress, right?”

“Yeah.” She rolls over and frowns at her closet door, able to picture the dress clearly even though she hasn’t looked at it in weeks. No matter how she tries to remind herself that she can still wear it for prom in the spring, the thought of waiting that long is disheartening.

“Okay, cool.”

Youngji’s eyes narrow. She knows her best friend. “What’s going on? You sound weird.”

“What? Nothing!” His voice goes higher on the last syllable. Something is definitely up.

“Jackson-”

“You took a shower today, right?”

“ _What_?” 

“Did you?”

Youngji makes a disbelieving noise. “This is why people keep asking us if we’re dating yet, because you’re so weird-”

“It’s not weird!”

“It is so!”

“Youngji!” Jackson interrupts impatiently. “Why can’t you just answer-”

Youngji shakes her head. “Yes, I did, okay. What’s going on?”

“You’ll _see_.”

“Tell me!”

“Just put the dress on and come downstairs-” 

“What? Just come up here, I’m tired.”

“ _Youngji._ ”

Youngji probably would have debated him further, but she’s not at her best. She hasn’t been able to let their bickering matches go in quite as many circles as usual lately. “Fine!”

She drags herself out of bed and puts on the dress, sighing at her reflection in her full-length mirror. The dress is pale pink and beautiful, molded to her body until it flows out at mid-thigh. The saleswoman had warned her that it would be an unusual color for Homecoming, which had decided it for Youngji. She likes unusual.

She makes a face as she sees how pale and tired she looks, but she knows if she lingers much longer Jackson will call back and complain, so she heads downstairs, pulling her hair back into a loose ponytail as she goes. Only a few more steps and she hears voices, barely audible but definitely not belonging to her family or Jackson. Curious, she picks up the pace, descending the stairs faster than she’s moved all day.

“Jackson?” She walks into the living room—then stops short and stares.

Jackson and her mom are both there, but they’re not the only ones: Jackson’s brought Kangjoon, Mark, Ahyeon, and Sohyun, all of them dressed in the outfits they’d worn to Homecoming. They’d all gone to Homecoming as a group, and Youngji had been planning to go with them. (Sohyun had texted Youngji earlier joking about how she’d been the only one without a date, since Mark and Ahyeon have been dating since last year and Kangjoon and Jackson have been hooking up since spring.)

“She lives,” Sohyun teases, and the others all look over. 

“You look nice,” Mark tells Youngji quietly.

She just keeps staring at them all, shaking her head a little. “What’s—what are you all doing here?” she asks in bewilderment, although she’s starting to put the pieces together herself. 

Sure enough, Jackson shrugs, the way he does when he’s trying to be casual even though he’s never been casual about anything in his life. “It really sucks you missed Homecoming, and we were all talking about it yesterday and thought we could at least take pictures with you today.” 

“You guys-” Overwhelmed, she hugs Jackson, then swats his arm. “You could’ve at least told me to fix my hair!”

“We’ll take care of that,” Sohyun assures her. “Come on.”

Jackson gives Youngji a quick squeeze, and then she lets Sohyun and Ahyeon sweep her upstairs, sparing Jackson one last glance. He has an ear-to-ear grin on his face, and she can’t help beaming in return, feeling better than she has in weeks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

They all take pictures for almost an hour, in one combination of poses after another.

“Prom pose, prom pose!” Mark teases Jackson and Youngji as they get ready for their picture together.

“No way, we have a better one,” Youngji informs him.

“And Youngji wasn’t going to be my date!” Jackson adds.

“Who would want to be your date?” Youngji retorts.

By the time Youngji’s mom snaps the picture of them, they’re both laughing, arms around each other and pressed cheek-to-cheek, just like in Youngji’s favorite picture of them from when they were kids.

Jackson stays after the others leave, since Youngji’s determined to get in a few episodes of their show even though the last hour has her feeling pretty worn out. 

As soon as they get to her room, Youngji promptly hugs him again. “I know this was your idea,” she tells him. “Don’t even try to say it wasn’t.”

“You were sad,” Jackson says simply. “I had to do _something_. I know it wasn’t like actually going-”

“It was perfect,” she interrupts, and he grins. “Thank you.”

“I know, I’m your favorite person,” he says, laughing when she gives him a light shove.

(Her mom makes another collage out of a bunch of the pseudo Homecoming pictures, but Youngji frames the one of her and Jackson and keeps it on her desk, next to the one of them from their childhood.

She’s lucky, she thinks as she sets it in its place. Seventeen years with Jackson Wang as her built-in best friend means she’s spent a lot of time bickering and exasperated, but she’s never once been left wondering if she was loved.)


End file.
